Multi-factory material planning
Global Factory Production Scheduling
Combine SAP orders, purchasing demand, inventory, and production spreadsheets to calculate latest shipment dates and produce a factory-ready schedule.
Solution overview
In real production, MC retains responsibility for scheduling decisions. ClawX creates value by automatically consolidating SAP data, processing multiple Excel files, calculating the latest delivery dates, and generating shipment plans.
This multi-factory pattern is illustrated with a Vietnam factory deployment: every day, the MC department updates production scheduling and shipment dates from SAP orders, purchasing demand, inventory information, and local production plans. ClawX takes over data preparation and rules-based calculation, while MC specialists retain scheduling authority and review only exception orders and critical changes.
- Business scenario
- The MC department uses SAP orders, purchasing demand, and inventory information to update production scheduling and shipment dates for the Vietnam factory.
- Channels and systems
- ClawX + multiple Excel files + SAP data exports.
- Current workload
- 2–4 MC specialists processing tens of thousands of order and material rows each day.
- Execution frequency
- Updated daily, with synchronized adjustments whenever orders change.
- Outcome after adoption
- Automatically consolidate multi-source data, calculate the latest shipment dates in batches, and output scheduling results; people review only exception orders.
- Core capabilities
- SAP order data; multiple Excel files; latest shipment dates; Vietnam factory production scheduling.
Acceptance metrics
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Data-processing efficiency | Baseline | 4–6× improvement |
| Automatic multi-table matching completion rate | Manual | 95%+ |
| Manual formula processing | Extensive manual formulas | Reduced by 90%+ |
| Scheduling-data output | Inconsistent files | Standardized |
| Exception orders | Manual inspection | Flagged automatically to improve review efficiency |
Customer background and business challenge
Enterprise type
A large electronics manufacturing services (EMS) enterprise coordinating production across multiple factories, with stringent requirements for order delivery dates, material arrival, and shipment cadence.
Business department
MC (Material Control), typically with 2–6 planning specialists responsible for production scheduling and delivery-date maintenance.
Knowledge sources
MC scheduling rules, order-priority rules, purchasing lead times, SAP data-field specifications, and Excel data templates.
Current pain point
Current pain point: tens of thousands of order rows are processed every day, and fields across multiple Excel files must be matched repeatedly; the work relies heavily on formulas such as VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, and pivot tables; delivery dates must be recalculated after purchasing demand changes, creating a heavy manual-inspection workload, while scheduling results must also be synchronized quickly with the Vietnam factory.
Implementation panorama
Before · SOP
- 1Export orders from SAP
- 2Export purchasing demand
- 3Export inventory data
- 4Open multiple Excel files
- 5Copy and paste data
- 6Run multiple rounds of matching
- 7Update formulas
- 8Calculate shipment dates
- 9Inspect exceptions manually
- 10Generate the scheduling spreadsheet
- 11Send it to the Vietnam factory
After · SOP
- 1Import SAP order data
- 2Import purchasing demand
- 3ClawX reads all Excel files automatically
- 4Data matching is completed automatically
- 5The latest shipment dates are calculated automatically
- 6Exception orders are flagged automatically
- 7Generate scheduling results
- 8Confirm manually
- 9Send the results to the Vietnam factory
Real-world workflow
Import data
The MC specialist imports Excel files containing SAP orders, purchasing demand, inventory, and production plans.
Integrate multiple tables
ClawX reads fields automatically and matches orders, materials, inventory, and purchasing lead times.
Calculate delivery dates
Apply business rules to update the latest shipment dates in batches and generate scheduling results.
Flag exceptions
Orders with shortages, delivery-date exceptions, missing fields, and other issues are flagged automatically and added to the review list.
Send to the factory
After confirming exceptions, MC sends the standardized scheduling plan to the Vietnam factory.
Implementation results and value data
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Processing time for tens of thousands of rows | 2–3 hours | 20–40 minutes |
| Multi-table lookup time | 30–60 minutes | Completed automatically |
| Data-matching method | Excel formulas maintained manually | Processed automatically by ClawX |
| Archive completeness | Multiple-version Excel management | Unified result file generated automatically |
| New-hire training cycle | 2–3 weeks | 5–7 days |
| Exception-review efficiency | Full manual inspection | Exceptions are flagged automatically; only priority data is reviewed |
Workflow before and after adoption
Before
Every day, MC specialists export order data from SAP and separately obtain multiple Excel files containing purchasing demand, inventory, and other data. They then run multiple rounds of data matching with VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, pivot tables, and other methods, update shipment dates from the latest purchasing lead times, and finally generate a scheduling plan to send to the Vietnam factory.
Whenever an order or purchasing demand changes, the entire data-processing workflow must be run again.
After
MC specialists import SAP-exported order data and purchasing demand into ClawX. The system automatically reads data from multiple Excel files, matches fields, calculates delivery dates, applies business rules to update shipment dates in batches, and outputs the latest scheduling plan.
The system also flags orders requiring human attention, such as shortages and delivery-date exceptions. MC staff only review exception data before sending the scheduling results to the Vietnam factory.
Delivered value
Automatically integrate multi-source data
Associate and process SAP, purchasing-demand, inventory, and other Excel files in one pass, reducing manual switching.
Automate complex Excel work
Replace extensive formula maintenance and repetitive data processing to improve data consistency.
Respond to scheduling changes faster
Recalculate shipment dates quickly after purchasing demand changes, shortening plan-update time.
Reduce human error
Reduce common problems such as copy-paste mistakes and formula-reference errors, improving data accuracy.
Standardize output
Generate scheduling-result files in a unified format to facilitate collaboration with the Vietnam factory and improve cross-factory planning execution.
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